I would be very careful about saying that "we're not
under law but under grace" is a cliche.
Romans 6:14 is a CRITICAL verse to the Christian
life. It is the essence of the explanation of why sin
is no longer master over us. Sin is no longer master
over us because we are not under law but under
grace. The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life!
We are new creations who love Christ in our heart
of hearts, and hate sin in our heart of hearts. We
are recipients of a radical New Covenant which
atones for and forgives all of our sin, past, present
and future. And declares us righteous. And
gives us new Life. Now when we hear the radical
message of Grace, we respond in love to our
Beloved. "How could You?", we cry, and the love
of Christ contrains us to follow Him.
The law of Christ, then is not a "rule of life", but
a guide to the heart of our Beloved whom we
DESIRE to follow and commune with.
Let's not wimp out, men, under the pressure of the
Covenant Galatianists. The law does two things:
quenches the Holy Spirit and inflames sin. That
includes New Covenant law, when applied as a
"rule of life".
To merely subsitute the Old for the New, and go
on to a rule-oriented law-oriented life is death.
We need to have the guts to tell the full gospel of
total grace, and risk, as Lloyd-Jones said, being
called Antinomians. We're not Antinomians, because
we take sin seriously. We hate it. We take it
seriously enough to praise God for His Son who
became sin for us that we might be made the
righteousness of God. We take it seriously
enough to know that we can't atone for it by
following a "rule of life" called the law of Christ.
Where sin abounds, grace much more abounds.
Don't shrink from that truth. There is nothing we
can do to make God love us more, and nothing
we can do to make God love us less. It is finished!
Should we sin then, so that grace would abound?
God forbid, stupid! (excuse the crass paraphrase).
How can you who have died to sin, continue in it?
If works are added to grace, it is no longer grace.
Please have the courage of Luther, if not Paul,
to risk being called an Antinomian. Preach the
Gospel! Don't appease the Galatianists by
saying, "YOUR law is not our rule of life anymore,
we have a BETTER law as our rule of life. Na-na-
na-na!"
We are not UNDER law, but UNDER grace.
Exegete it, but don't call it a cliche. It's the
whole point!
"Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit,
are you now being perfected by the flesh?" Ga 3:3
"It was for freedom that Christ set us free;
therefore keep standing firm and do not be
subject again to a yoke of slavery." Ga 5:1
If the love of Christ doesn't contrain us, brothers,
nothing will.
In His New Covenant,
Terry Rayburn
Clarkville, TN
Chad Richard Bresson <breusswane@...> wrote:
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Reisinger" <24jreisinger26@...>
>I think it is vital that we do not respond as many people who label
>themselves NCT have responded.
I concur. I think it is unhelpful when we are in dialogue with others (who
are trying to pigeon-hole us) not to simply respond with "we're not under
law, but under grace". NCT, as I've seen it here, is firm in its commitment
to the Law of Christ. Responding with the "not under law but grace" cliche
really does make us no better than the dispensationalists. It becomes
impossible to show our distinction from dispensationalists if we cop their
mantra, even though we may qualify it much differently than they do.
Chad
--
Read the Sound of Grace pages at
http://www.soundofgrace.com
To unsubscribe, send ANY message to: soundofgrace-unsubscribe@...
To view our online archive go to our web page at
http://www.associate.com/groups/soundofgrace
Visit "Grace For Life"
An Oasis of Rest For the People of God
http://www.graceforlife.com
---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard.
--
Read the Sound of Grace pages at
http://www.soundofgrace.com
To unsubscribe, send ANY message to: soundofgrace-unsubscribe@...
To view our online archive go to our web page at
http://www.associate.com/groups/soundofgrace